Commercial Space Station – Orbital Technologies

CSS – Commercial Space Station – Space Hotel

Design plans were unveiled in Moscow this week by Orbital Technologies, the Russian company seeking to get wealthy tourists boldly going where they have never gone before.While the price may not seem too astronomical, with initial claims suggesting the a five-day stay may cost around £100,000, it’s going to cost a cool £250,000 to get there.

So far only 500 people have been into space. Aside from a few very rich men willing to pay for the privilege, they have all been trained astronauts and cosmonauts.

Orbital’s chief executive Sergei Kostenko said his orbiting hotel will be ‘far more comfortable’ than the International Space Station. With room for seven guests in four cabins, visitors to the 706 cubic feet pod will be able to see the wonders of space through huge windows.

Called the CSS (Commercial Space Station) it will be built 217 miles above the earth and accessed via Russian Soyuz rockets.

Available for use as an emergency bolthole for astronauts aboard the manned space station, visitors will also be able to choose beds that are either vertical or horizontal – due to the weightlessness of space. And its showers will be totally sealed to stop water going where it shouldn’t.

Orbital Technologies is affiliated with RSC Energia, the prime Russian contractor for the International Space Station and the operator of all of the long line of Soviet and Russian space stations.

Mr Kostenko added that his space station would be up and running for tourists, hopefully by 2016, long before Virgin boss Richard Branson builds his